Electrical connections between insulated wires and substrates have been established using soldering and wire-wrapping techniques. Soldering an insulated wire to a pin or terminal of a substrate requires stripping a portion of the insulation to expose the electrically-conductive wire portion. The user manually places the exposed wire portion in contact with the pin. A soldering iron generates heat which transforms solder into a liquid state. In its liquid state, the user places solder on the area of contact between the pin and wire portion. When the solder solidifies, a permanent electrical connection is established between the substrate and wire portion. Although soldering to establish a permanent electrical connection has generally been accepted, such a technique requires the user to possess skill and is time consuming. Further, the heat generated while soldering a wire portion to a pin of a substrate can cause damage to electrical and electronic components connected to the substrate and insulated wire.
Wire wrapping has also been used to establish a connection between an insulated wire and a pin of a substrate. Such a technique involves a user loading insulated wire into a wire-wrapping tool. Loading requires a user to feed the wire through a hole on a bit, and place the wire in a notch on a sleeve of the tool. After the tool is loaded, it is placed on a pin and activated. This causes the bit to rotate within the sleeve. As the bit rotates, the insulated wire is stripped as it is pulled through the hole, and cut at a predetermined length. The resultant exposed wire portion is wrapped around the pin. The wire-wrapping tool may be, for example, a pneumatic or an electrical gun-type. Although wire wrapping has generally been accepted to establish a permanent electrical connection, several short comings exist. For instance, wire wrapping is time consuming, at times the insulation is not properly removed from the wire, the length of the cut wire is not always accurate, it requires the user to possess skill, and it is ergonomically inefficient and thus can lead to injuries for the user, for example, such as carpal-tunnel syndrome.